Babson's play 'Old Money' looks at the character of America through wealth

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Feb 25, 2018 at 8:20 PMFeb 27, 2018 at 5:25 PM

By Alexander Stevens Daily News Correspondent

There’s a quote by John Adams that resonates with Karen MacDonald these days.

“We do possess one material which actually constitutes an aristocracy that governs the Nation,” wrote the second President of the United States. “That material is wealth. Talents, birth, virtues, services, sacrifices are of little consideration with us.”

He wrote it in 1808, even if it sounds like 2018.

MacDonald has been pondering the quote because money’s ability to create power is one of the central ideas that weaves its way through playwright Wendy Wasserstein’s “Old Money,” produced by the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, March 6-18 at the Sorenson Center for the Arts at Babson College in Wellesley.

“What is this thing about money and America?” asks MacDonald, who’s directing the show. “The play looks at the character of America through the idea of wealth.”

Wasserstein said she got the idea for the play when she attended an exclusive dinner party in New York City. She later envisioned a play that would time-travel, cutting back and forth between residents of the home in the early 1900s and the early 2000s.

Wasserstein examines what wealth meant in the Gilded Age, and she compares it with new money in the new millennium. Yesterday’s robber barons have become the arbitragers of today. But what else has changed in our country’s relationship with money?

MacDonald says she doesn’t want to get political, and then she gets political.

“It seems as though the country is being run, or that it’s been hoodwinked, by rich people,” she says, “and one particular rich person in the White House.”

Money may have been the special sauce in Donald Trump’s campaign. His wealth was perceived as some kind of qualification for being president: Well, he must know something, because he’s rich.

“He pretends to be on the side of the (working class) people who voted for him,” says MacDonald. “It’s so ludicrous. It’s been an amazing manipulation.”

Perhaps you’ve seen or read “Old Money,” but probably not. Variety and the New York Times wrote tepid reviews of the original 2000 production in New York. And the play hasn’t enjoyed much of an afterlife since its debut.

MacDonald isn’t deterred.

“Two reviews are really just two people’s opinions,” she says. “That doesn’t take into account all the people who saw the show and may have reacted more positively. I don’t think a poor review is ever a reason not to stage a play.”

Still, “Old Money,” like any play, presents hurdles. Do audiences want to watch social climbers climb?

MacDonald says that if the play strikes a more satirical tone, it softens the edge and draws in the audience.

“We recognize part of ourselves in the characters. They have foibles. We don’t always realize that we’re funny,” MacDonald adds with a laugh.

She believes that perhaps “Old Money” can be made new again. Or, more correctly, that the 18 years since it premiered have made the play even more relevant. She thinks about current cultural touchstones such as the Kardashians, whose TV show was just a bad dream back in 2000.

“Why are the Kardashians famous?” asks MacDonald, echoing the question that rings across America. “How much money do they have?”

MacDonald arrives at “Old Money” with a staggering amount of professional theater experience. The former Watertown resident, who now lives in Melrose, was one of the founding members of the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, where she performed more than 70 roles. She’s directed plays such as “The Woman in Black” (Gloucester Stage Company) and “Dressed Up! Wigged Out!” (Boston Playwrights’ Theatre), but the vast majority of her theater experience is as a performer.

That history certainly helps her direct fellow actors, but it can also hurt.

“I can never quite take off my actor’s hat,” admits MacDonald. “My tendency is to think like an actor.”

As a result, MacDonald says there’s a “potential danger.” She must resist the impulse to demonstrate her ideas. Her job isn’t to teach actors how to replicate her vision of the characters; her job is to help the actors find their own interpretations.

She’ll certainly be helped by a talented cast that includes Will Lyman, Jeremiah Kissel, Ed Hoopman and others.

Despite the challenges and responsibilities of directing, MacDonald says, “It’s fun to be the decision-maker behind the table.”

She likes the power.

Ah, the power. It is money’s great allure, and it’s at the core of the play. The influence of wealth – in politics, in commerce, in government, in health care, in everything – is a problem that’s older than John Adams.

“You’d like to think our country is changing and evolving,” says MacDonald. “But is that actually happening? I don’t know.”

Commonwealth Shakespeare Company presents “Old Money,” March 6-18, at the Sorenson Center for the Arts at Babson College, in Wellesley. Tickets: $25-$65. Visit commshakes.org, or call 781-239-5880.

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